


i fall on tragedy

by orphan_account



Series: secondhand rapture [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DC Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, F/M, again this is ben affleck's fault, someone stop me i can't stop writing this 'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 04:53:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7494618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She just wants to go home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i fall on tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> *Janice from Friends voice* Oh...my....God! I thought I was done writing Jason Todd as a girl but I was apparently really fucking wrong. Apparently my brain thought it was a magnificent idea to re-write basically my entire fic from Jasey's POV. Yay! And this was supposed to go in, like, 50 other directions than what it wound up going in..for example, Damian Wayne was supposed to be in this fic, as was Stephanie Brown, but apparently, I can't have nice things. Also, it had a lot more scenes, but they just didn't really gel, so I may post them as outtakes later on if anyone is interested. Again, if anyone reads this foolishness, I really, really love you and hope you get everything you want out of life.

 

The girl is curled up in a ball on the park bench, only a thin jacket covering her from the cold night air.  She looks like she hasn’t eaten in a few days and her long black hair is tangled and greasy, hanging around her face and hiding it from view.  She doesn’t remember where she comes from.  She doesn’t remember who she is.  She has no home, no family, and no name.  She shifts on the bench and her blue eyes open and stare restlessly up at the sky.  _Who am I?_   As if in answer to her question, a golden circle of light bursts across the inky blackness of the sky.  In the middle of it is the shape of a bat.  And just like that, the girl remembers.  _My name is Jasey Petra Todd.  I am **alive**.  I will have my revenge.  _

***

“Hey, sweetheart, you come here often?” 

Jasey’s body tenses at the come-on, her right hand curling into a fist under the bar.  The guy is tall, well-built and has the ugliest mustache she’s ever seen on a human being.  Underneath it his grin is wide and malicious.  Jasey debates ignoring him and finishing her beer, but he scoots closer to her, pressing up against her hip, and with a muttered curse, she slaps some money on the bar and starts to walk away. 

“Hey, I was talking to you!”  The guy grabs her around the wrist, his grip tight enough to grind the fragile bones together, and Jasey’s blood goes white-hot in her veins.  She spins quickly, her other hand coming up to punch him in the face, but someone beats her to it.

Her savior has a head full of red hair and a face full of freckles and Jasey watches in dull amusement as he shoves the mustached guy back up against the bar.  “Didn’t your mother teach you how to treat ladies?” he asks.

“Fuck you!”

Jasey rolls her eyes and turns to the door, intending to let the two of them fight it out.  The night air is cold on her skin as she steps outside, and she shivers in her thin hooded jacket.  She’s half-way down the block, a lit cigarette in her mouth, when she hears shouting behind her. 

“Hey, girl!”

Jasey turns, expecting it to be the guy who hit on her.  Normally she would keep walking, but her skin feels stretched too tight over her bones and her blood thrums just a little too hot in her veins.  She wants to fight, craves the rush of adrenaline it would bring.  But it’s the red-headed guy who runs up to her, a smile on his face.

“I’m Roy,” he says, holding his hand out to her.  “Roy Harper.  And you’re welcome, by the way.”

Jasey stares at his hand until he awkwardly lowers it back to his side.  “What do you want?” she says, her voice guarded.  

The guy just keeps smiling, his breath making little frosty puffs in the cold winter air.  “Oh, I’m not hitting on you or anything like that.  Not that you’re not beautiful, because you are, I mean-.  Shit.  I just wanted to, you know, make sure you’re okay.”

 _Is this guy for real?_   “I’m fine,” Jasey says, dropping her cigarette to the ground and stomping on it with the toe of her boot.  “And, just so you know, I could have handled that jerk myself.”

***

Jasey doesn’t know what hurts worse, finding out that Bruce has replaced her with some snot-headed brat name Tim Drake or finding out that the Joker is rotting away in Arkham Asylum when he should be dead.  The fact that Bruce has let him live wounds her to her core.  Hatred fills her, consumes her, and she barely remembers who she was before her sole purpose in life was to kill the Joker for what he did to her.  She bides her time carefully.  Breaking _into_ Arkham is no easy feat, but breaking _out_ …

“Hey, did you hear the news?”  Roy closes the door to their small apartment behind him with a bang, shaking his head like a wet dog.  “Jesus Christ, it is really coming out down there.  Anyway, that Joker guy is loose on the streets again.  Those guards at Arkham can’t do their job for shit, can they?”

Jasey drops the plate she had been washing and it falls back into the sink with a clatter.

“Hey, you okay?  You kind of look like you’re going to be sick.”

“I’m fine,” Jasey says, avoiding his gaze.  She picks the plate up out of the sink, dries it off, and puts it back in the cabinet.  Her hands shake the entire time.  “I’m going out tonight,” she tells Roy, as she heads into her bedroom.  “Don’t wait up.”

“You’re going out in this weather?  He must be a special guy.”

Jasey’s heart flips over in her chest, half in anxiety and half in anticipation.  “He’s something.”

Trying to kill the Joker was a disaster.  Jasey stumbles into the apartment, shivering from the rain, and makes it half-way across the kitchen before she falls to the floor.  She’s bleeding from a cut on her head and her chin and hands are scraped and bruised.  The room looks like it’s spinning around her.  She feels someone kneel beside her, feels their arms go around her, hears the worried tone of their voice.  “Bruce?” she asks.  She doesn’t think it’s him, but she feels like she has to say it anyway.  “I’m sorry.”  Tears fall from her eyes and sting her face.  “I’m so sorry, Bruce.  I’m sorry.”  Everything goes black.

Jasey wakes up to a pounding headache and sunlight streaming through the cracks in the broken blinds.  She groans and tries to sit up, wincing when she feels a sharp pain in her ribs, but a strong pair of hands gently pushes her back down on her bed.   

“Jasey,” Roy says calmly.  “I’ve been up all night going through worst-case scenarios and trying to convince myself not to take you to a hospital or call the cops.”  His voice rises in pitch, his face turning red underneath his freckles.  “So, you better have a really damn good explanation for why I found you passed out and bleeding all over the kitchen floor at five in the fucking morning!”

Jasey sighs.  “It’s not a big deal, Roy.  I’m fine.”

“It is a big deal!  You could have had a concussion!  You could have been assaulted!  How was I supposed to know?  You just passed out!  And who the hell is Bruce?”

Jasey flinches like Roy has shot her, Bruce’s name tearing through her like a bullet.

“Who is he, Jasey?” Roy asks, softer this time.  “I hear you say his name in your sleep almost every night.  Did he hurt you?  Is that what happened?”

Jasey remembers the look on Bruce’s face when he saw her last night, the raw, blind hope.  She remembers how she ran away. _No, I hurt **him**.  _ “No, Roy, nobody hurt me. I’m fine, really.  I promise, I just slipped on a puddle and fell.”

Roy doesn’t look like he believes her, but he doesn’t ask any more questions.  Instead, he changes the bandage on her forehead, heats her up a bowl of soup, and then curls up in her bed beside her and reads to her from _The Westing Game_ until they both fall asleep. 

***

The first time was a mistake.  She didn’t mean to kill the guy, but she was so _angry_ and he wouldn’t stop fighting, wouldn’t just give up.  She was just supposed to scare him enough to get information about his boss, a new drug lord who was quickly racking up a body count, but he just would not cooperate.  The knife went into his stomach almost too easily and Jasey watched in sick fascination as blood trickled out of his mouth and his eyes went glassy.  Then, she threw up the chili dog she had had for supper and ran away. 

The next night, she goes out and finds a guy who does talk, and learns where the drug lord’s base of operations is.  The guy begs for his life when she pulls out a gun, but she shoots him anyway.  Then she tracks the drug lord down and kills him, too.  The way she sees it she’s doing what Bruce never could, ridding Gotham of crime for good.  Now, no one ever has to get hurt again.

 _You’re just like him_ , a voice in her head says sometimes, but she quickly shuts it up.  _I’m nothing like him.  I’m not killing **innocent** people.  I’m doing **good**._

***

“Happy birthday, Jay.”  Roy is grinning at her, a pink-frosted cupcake in his outstretched hand, and all Jasey can think about is the sound the guy she killed made last night right before she put a bullet through his skull.  She takes the cupcake from Roy’s hand, forcing a smile on her face.  “Thanks, asshole.  Did you actually buy this or is some poor kid out there crying because you stole from her?”

Roy presses his hands to his heart, mock-offended.  “You wound me,” he says.  He flops down gracelessly in one of the two mis-matched kitchen chairs they have and pulls his boots off.  “So, what’s the plan for tonight?  Are we celebrating?  A little clubbing, a little bar-hopping?  I can call-“

“No,” Jasey says quickly.  “It’s fine.  I don’t want to celebrate.”  She thinks about the guy she’s been tracking for the past week, the long list of crimes he’s committed.  She thinks about how she’ll feel when she watches the blood leave his body.

“Earth to Jay.  You in there?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you want to celebrate?  It’s not every day a girl turns nineteen.”

Jasey shrugs and bites into the cupcake.  It tastes like ashes on her tongue.

***

“Of all the gin joints…”

Jasey’s lips curls up into a grin at the familiar voice, even though it sends a pang of homesickness through her so strong it almost knocks her over.  “Over two years and that’s the best line you’ve got to give to me, Grayson?  You’re getting rusty.”

“You wish.”  Dick nods his head in the direction of the unconscious guy slumped against the wall behind her.  “What’d he do, insult your honor?”

“Something like that.”  Jasey tries to keep her tone light, but it shakes slightly.

Dick’s face grows serious.  “Bruce knows, Jay.”

 _Just play dumb._   “Knows what?”

“How are you going to do it, huh?  You gonna stab that guy while he’s still unconscious, not even give him a chance to defend himself?”

Jasey’s hands begin to shake.  Dick is looking at her like he doesn’t even recognize her, like she’s a monster, like she’s the bad guy.  “Shut up!” she shouts.  “You don’t know anything!  I’m doing this for Bruce, because he can’t do it himself!  I’m protecting the city!”

“You’re a murderer, Jasey.”

“No,” she says, bile rising up in her throat.  “I’m not.  Dick, I’m not.”

“All month long, we’ve been cleaning up dead bodies that _you’ve_ left behind.  Bruce didn’t teach you to kill, Jay.  You know that.”

Jasey wipes her eyes, trying to hold back the tears threatening to fall.  “I don’t know what else to do,” she says.  _This is the only thing that makes it hurt less._

“You can come home.”  Dick’s voice takes on a pleading tone and he takes a careful step towards her.  “We all miss you so much, Jay.  We want you to come back home.”

Jasey shakes her head.  “I can’t, Dickie.”

“Why not?”

_I don’t deserve to._

Dick groans in frustration when she doesn’t give him an answer.  “Why are you doing this, Jay?”

That she can answer.  “Because no one else deserves what I went through.”     

“There are other ways.”

“If there were other ways, then this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Mistakes-“

“It wasn’t a mistake!”  Anger floods Jasey’s veins, but she pushes it back down.  She wasn’t mad at Dick, not really.  She was mad at herself.  “It wasn’t a mistake, Dick.  He planned it out.  He _wanted_ to hurt me, to hurt Bruce.  I don’t think anyone could have stopped him.”

“I know,” Dick says, so softly she barely hears him.  “I’m sorry, Jay.”

She shrugs.  “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Look, I can’t just walk away and let you kill this guy, you know that.”  Dick walks over to the guy and kicks him gently with his foot.  “Hey.  Hey, buddy, wake up.”

The guy groans and opens his eyes, scanning the street before landing on Jasey.  “Stay the fuck away from me, crazy bitch!”

Jasey takes a step back, her hands up in the air.  “I’m not going to hurt you,” she says.  _Tonight._

“You hear that?  She’s not going to hurt you.  But, I might if you don’t get up and walk away.”  Dick pulls the guy to his feet and they both watch as he takes off down the street.

Jasey sighs and turns to walk away.  “Hey, Dick,” she says, at the last second, looking over her shoulder.

He pauses, his motorcycle helmet dangling in his hands.  “Yeah?”

“How is he?”

Dick’s lips curve up in a sad half-grin.  “He’s fucking terrible, Jay.”

Jasey nods, her heart breaking in her chest.  “See you around, Grayson.”  She watches as his motorcycle disappears down the street and then she walks home.

***

Talking to Bruce was another mistake.  She didn’t mean for it to happen, but before she could even blink, he was right there in front of her and she couldn’t bring herself to run away.  All the anger and pain she had been holding in for the past few months flew from her lips like arrows and when she saw his face fall, saw the pain and the guilt he had been living with, she didn’t know what to feel anymore.  _I’m sorry_ , she wanted to say _.  I don’t want you to hurt.  I don’t **me** to hurt.  I just want everything to go back to normal._   They were only a few feet apart from each other, but she had never felt further away from him.  There was blood under her fingernails from the fight she had been in earlier and her stomach heaved when she remembered how much the guy had struggled before she finally cut off his air-supply with her hands.  Bruce looked at her like she was something holy, something to worship.  He was wrong.  _It’s better this way_ , Jasey wanted to tell him.  _All I’m going to do is hurt you._ She walked away.

*** 

She’s on her way home when she hears the fight.  She’s already a little beat up but she follows the sound anyway, her blood pumping hot in her veins.  The first thing she sees is the costume: green cape blowing in the wind.  It’s not Dick’s old costume, but still, it’s undoubtedly the new Robin.  He’s getting his ass kicked by three burly guys and Dick and Bruce are nowhere to be seen.  Jasey hesitates for one second, jealously viciously burning in her, but then the kid lets out a pained sound as he’s knocked to his knees.  One of the guys twists his arms back so another one of them can punch him in the face and Jasey leaps into action, pulling her gun out of her waistband and taking the guy nearest her out first with a shot to the head. 

Robin’s head whips around at the sound of the gun shot and his eyes grow wide.  The guy holding his arms lets him go and stalks toward Jasey, pulling out his own gun, but he’s dead before he gets to her.  The remaining guy takes off running in the other direction, and Jasey lets him get a few feet away before she shoots him as well.  She clicks the safety back on her gun and turns to the kid, expecting for him to freak-out on her about the dead bodies.

He looks at her with a calm, albeit curious, expression.  “You’re her, aren’t you?  You’re Jasey Todd.”  He looks at her like he knows all of her secrets. 

Jasey startles at the question.  “Are you hurt?” she asks him.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Why didn’t someone come with you?”

“Someone…oh, you mean Batman?”  The kid laughs nervously, the sound echoing eerily in the silence of the alley.  “Um, well, I may have snuck out.  You’re not going to tell him, are you?”

“We’re not exactly-“  Jasey is cut off at the sound of a motorcycle engine and then one very angry Dick Grayson is stalking down the alleyway and grabbing the kid by the front of his leotard, almost lifting him off the ground.

“What the fuck, Tim?”

The kid immediately cracks like an egg.  “I’m sorry, please don’t tell Bruce!  I just wanted to see if I could do it by myself.”

Jasey rolls her eyes.  “Well, my work here is done.”  She’s really not in the mood to have another heart-to-heart with Dick, so she starts to walk away, hoping he’s so angry at the kid that he won’t even notice she was there.

Dick turns to her as soon as she starts moving, his expression even angrier than before.  “What are you doing here?” he snaps.  His eyes fall to the two dead bodies on the ground.  “Jesus Christ, Jay, did you kill these guys in front of him?  Is that why he was out here, to stop you?”

Jasey is about to defend herself, but the kid beats her to it.  “That’s not what happened, Dick.  I was getting my ass handed to me and she saved me.”

“Is that true?” Dick asks, his voice softening slightly.

“Yeah,” Jasey says.  “It’s true.  I was on my way home and I saw him getting beat up and I stepped in to help him.  He _is_ just a kid.”

“I’m sixteen!” Tim protests.

Dick sighs and runs a hand over the top of his head, looking embarrassed.  “I’m sorry, Jay.”

“Whatever, I understand.”  She turns to Tim, looks him over.  He has a split lip and his right eye will be black in the morning, but other than that, he looks unharmed.  “You’re gonna want some ice for that eye,” she tells him and he holds his hand up to it as if he’s just now noticing it hurts.

“Thanks for saving me,” he says and holds his other hand out to her.  “And it’s nice to finally meet you.”

Jasey laughs and shakes his hand, swallows down the bitter jealously still burning in her.  “No problem, kid.”

***

“Do you have a family?” Roy asks hers.  It’s after midnight and they’re eating cereal in the kitchen.

Jasey takes time to consider his question.  “I did,” she says finally, looking into her bowl at the last of her Froot Loops.  “I don’t anymore.”

“What happened?”

“I died.”  Jasey stares Roy right in the eyes, her face devoid of emotion.

He lasts about five seconds and then he starts to laugh, so hard that for a second, she’s scared he’s going to shoot milk out of his nose.  “That’s a good one, Jay.  You almost had me going there for a second.” 

Jasey just smiles at him.

***

“If you’re here to help, we do things Batman’s way.”  Dick is bleeding from both his nose and his mouth, but his voice is firm as Jasey falls into step beside him, her hands already curled into fists.  She was on her way to the docks when she heard the news about the bank robbery and the twelve hostages the robbers had taken.  Dick’s text came through on her phone when she was half a block away.

_Be my sidekick?_

_Fuck u.  You’re the sidekick_

_You’re already outside aren’t you?_

_Shut up_

“You know what I don’t get about bank robbers and hostages?” Dick asks as he side-steps a punch from a guy who bears a striking resemblance to Owen Wilson.  “After you take the money, why not just run?  Why stay behind and hold hostages?  That’s just asking to get caught!”

“Don’t give them ideas,” Jasey says.  She takes one of the robbers out with a swift kick to the knee, followed by a fist to the face.  He falls unconscious onto the marble floor next to a female bank teller who lets out a small shriek.  “So where’s B tonight?” Jasey asks, trying to keep her voice light and unconcerned.  “Out with the baby bird?”

Dick flips over the top of a guy’s head and grabs him from behind, locking his arms around his neck until he passes out and slumps to the floor.  “You guessed it.  Hey, after this, do you wanna grab some burgers?  I am starving!”

Jasey smiles and realizes that for the first time in a long time, she’s happy.  In the middle of a bank, her fist pummeling into some guy’s stomach and Dick by her side, she feels more at peace than she has all year.  “Yeah,” she says.  “Burgers sound great.”

After that, falling back in with Dick, and likewise, Barbara, is easy.  They treat her like they’ve always treated her, like their family.  Jasey starts helping Dick out on missions and patrols and it’s almost like nothing ever happened, like nothing changed.  She starts to grow closer to Tim, too.  At first, she was dead-seat against resenting him, angry at him for replacing her.  But, he surprised her.  He was a giant pain in the ass, but he was also extremely kind and funny and intelligent.  She could tell being Robin was important to him, just like it was to her and Dick.  Sometimes she thought he even took the job more seriously than they did.

Jasey gets her arm sliced open one night, trying to help Dick get rid of one of Poison Ivy’s plants that popped up in the middle of the Gotham Museum of Natural History.  Dick convinces her to come back to the cave and have Alfred stitch her arm up.  She protests at first, claiming that the injury wasn’t as bad as it looked, even as she began to feel light-headed.

“Bruce isn’t there,” Dick said, finally convincing her.  “He’s out of town on Wayne Enterprises business.”

Being back in the cave is hard.  Everything looks exactly the way it did the night she was murdered, well, almost everything.  Bruce has put her old Robin suit, burnt and in tatters, in a glass display case.  Her stomach turns at the sight of it.  _Such a pretty little Robin._   “Why,” she chokes out, cradling her injured arm.  “Why would he do that?”

Dick’s face is anguished.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t think.  Just…don’t look at it, okay?”  He puts his arm around her shoulders and leads her over to a chair, gently sits her down. 

Alfred appears out of nowhere, the first-aid kit in his hand.  “Miss Todd, it’s extremely delightful to see you again.”  The old butler smiles softly at her, his eyes wet.

Jasey swallows hard, feeling a thousand emotions running through her at once.  Being back in the cave just makes her realize how much she misses being at the manor, how much she misses the people she came to call her family.  _I want to come home_ , she thinks miserably, like a child away at summer camp.  _I want to belong again._   “Alfred, I’ve missed you,” she says and then she bursts into tears.  “Oh my God, I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”  She feels like she’s hyperventilating, she can’t breathe, it’s too much…

“Jasey!”

She focuses on Dick’s face, on the sharp lines of his cheekbones, the fullness of his lips.  “Breathe, Jay.  You’re okay.  Everything’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” she says again.  Alfred pats her gently on the shoulder, his face full of concern.  “I just…being back here…”  She takes a deep breath, willing her tears to dry up.  She hates crying, it makes her feel weak.  And she’s _not_ weak.

“I shouldn’t have brought you,” Dick says.  “It was a mistake.”

Jasey shakes her head.  “No, it’s fine.  I’m fine.”  She tries to smile, wiping the last of the tears from her eyes.  “I must just be hormonal or something.”

“Miss Todd, you shouldn’t be scared to show emotion.  It is, after all, what makes us human.  Now, let’s get that arm fixed and that will solve one of your problems,” Alfred says, already threading a needle. 

_B is out of town and we  have bubblegum icecream and all 3 stars wars movies.  U in?_

Jasey laughs out loud at the text, so much so that Roy looks up from his Xbox game and says, “Who has you so happy?”

“Why, are you jealous?” she fires back, her fingers quickly texting back a reply.

_Be there in 20.  Dibs on the middle seat_

“No, I’m not jealous.  You just don’t really have any other friends except me.  Well, there’s Kory, but-”

“That is so not true!” Jasey says.  She bends down to re-tie the lace on her Converse and when she straightens back up, Roy gives her a look like she’s an idiot.

“Name one other friend you have beside me,” he challenges her.

She waves her phone in his face.  “The guy I was just texting.”

“And who is he?”

Jasey grabs her jacket off the back of the chair and pulls it on, sliding her phone into the pocket.  “He’s my brother.”

“You don’t have a brother!” Roy shouts after her as she leaves the apartment, returning the middle finger she gives him.

“Shows what you know!” she calls back, closing the door behind her with a loud bang.

***

Jasey isn’t stupid.  She knows she can’t go on the way she’s been going.  At some point, she has to keep pretending that murdering thugs isn’t as bad as them murdering innocent people.  At some point, she’s going to have to face Bruce and ask for his forgiveness.  At some point, she’s going to have to go back home.  She just has to pick a starting point.

It’s three in the morning and it’s storming and she can’t sleep.  Roy is out, probably hooking up with some girl, and the apartment is eerily quiet save for the drum of the rainfall and occasional boom of thunder.  Jasey picks up her phone, intending to text Dick and annoy him, but she finds herself dialing a familiar number instead.  She almost hangs up when she realizes what she’s done, but she stops herself just in time.  Bruce’s voice is heavy with sleep, but it grows more alert when he realizes it’s her.  Just hearing him is enough to make her cry, and her tears just increase when she thinks about how much she’s hurt him.  She confesses to him, says it right out loud, like he didn’t already know.  _I’ve **killed** people.  _ He doesn’t get angry with her or hang up, instead, he tells her that everything is going to be okay.  There’s so much she wants to tell him, how much she misses him, how much she loves him, but before she can, the front door to the apartment bangs open.

Jasey hurriedly ends the call and grabs her gun from the drawer in the nightstand, clicking the safety off.  The storm has knocked the power out, leaving the apartment in pitch darkness, but she can hear the intruder moving around in the kitchen.  She can tell by the footsteps that it’s not Roy.  Lightning strikes through the window above the sink, illuminating the figure for a split second before it darts away.  It’s a young girl, dark clothes, plain features, no visible weapons.

“What do you want?” Jasey calls out, her heart hammering in her chest.

For a second, there’s no response.  And then, “You killed my mother.”  It’s spoken with a slight accent, but the voice is steady.

Jasey feels her world tilt on its axis.  Her throat swells up, tears pooling in her eyes, and she grips the handle of the gun so hard she’s afraid that she might break it.  She tries to think of something to say, but she can’t.  She knows exactly what the girl is talking about, remembers the kill vividly.  Jennifer Greene was the wife of a Russian mobster whose American trading company was a front for illegal weapon shipments across European borders.  Jennifer ran the American business, her husband the European.  Countless lives were lost because of them.  And now this, their daughter, come for blood just like her parents.  Just like Jasey.

“You killed my mother,” the girl repeats.  Her voice sounds closer now, but Jasey still can’t tell where she is.  She grips the gun like it’s her lifeline, the only thing tethering her to the world.  She waits.

The girl lunges with a blood-curdling scream, her hands going for Jasey’s throat.  Jasey fires the gun, once, twice, three times.  The girl’s body slumps to the ground, lifeless and Jasey falls down next to it, tears streaming down her face.  _I can’t do this anymore._

***

It took Jasey almost a year to recover.  That night, she got rid of the girl’s body, came back to the apartment, packed a bag, and wrote a note to Roy explaining that she would be going out of town for a while.  She texted Dick the same thing, told him to pass the message along and not to worry, and got on the first train out of Gotham.  She needed to clear her head.

So, she did.  She went all over the United States, staying in cheap motels and eating crappy fast food and going to cliché tourist traps.  She spent Christmas in Metropolis and New Year’s in Star City, but the whole time she missed Gotham like an ache in her bones.  When spring came around again, flowers rising from the ground like colorful, beautiful corpses, she decided it was time to go back home.

***

Jasey watches them as they put the blanket down on the grass.  She wonders whose idea it was to have a picnic, probably Dick’s, but it could have easily been Barbara’s, too.  Tim laughs at something Bruce says to him and Jasey finds herself smiling as she watches them.  She wants so much to run over to them and join them, but it’s been so long and so much has happened.  She watches as Dick sits down next to Barbara on the blanket and puts his arm around her, kisses her on the cheek.  Their love has always seemed so natural to her, so easy.  Her eyes fall to Bruce.  Even after all this time, it still takes her breath away to look at him.

Jasey’s phone buzzes in the pocket of her sundress.  She pulls it out and laughs when she read the text.

_Hey stalker!!!  R u gonna just sit there 4 the rest of the day or r u gonna come join us?_

Instead of texting Dick back, she pockets her phone and squares her shoulders.  The walk over to the blanket feels like it takes a million years but it’s worth it when Bruce flashes a real, genuine smile at her.  “Did anyone pack bubblegum ice cream?” she asks, lingering on the edge of the blanket, still too unsure to sit down.

“Come a little closer, little bird, and find out,” Bruce says.  He offers her his hand and she takes it, her fingers wrapping around his.

***

“Do you want to talk about it?”  That’s the first thing Bruce asks her, once they’re alone later in the day for the first time in what feels like centuries, tucked away upstairs in the master bedroom.  She’s sitting on the bed, back against the wooden headboard and legs stretched out in front of her, but he hovers anxiously by the door like he’s afraid to be near her. 

 _Do I want to talk about it?_   Jasey stares down at a bruise on her knee, peeking out from the hem of her red sundress and remembers waking up inside a coffin, dirt inside her mouth.  The sheer, unimaginable terror she had felt and the pain in every part of her body as she clawed her way out of her own grave.  Stumbling out onto a street and being hit by a car, followed by a year lost in a coma in a hospital on the outskirts of town.  Waking up and wondering the streets for yet another year, having no idea who she was.  Then the Lazarus Pit, more pain, and then the blind fury she felt at finding out that the Joker wasn’t dead.  “No,” she says, her voice cracking as she looks up at Bruce.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He takes a careful step towards her.  “Okay,” he says gently.  “We don’t have to talk about it.”  His lips turn up in a half-smile, trying to put her at ease.  He’s being so careful with her, like he’s afraid she’s going to break and Jasey can’t _stand_ that.  Being around him again has her all fucked up, her emotions running wild, and she can’t tell if she wants him to hold her while she cries for about a million years or have him fuck her until she forgets her own name.  Maybe both.  _You wanted this_ , she reminds herself.  _You wanted to come home.  Don’t freak out now._

Almost like he can read her mind, Bruce sits down on the edge of the bed beside her.  “Jasey,” he says, just her name, that’s it, and she feels like she’s sixteen again and so in love she aches from it.  There’s so much she _does_ want to tell him, so many words trapped inside her that she feels like she’ll explode.  She has the sudden urge to run away, an awful, terrible feeling that coming back was a mistake.  She’s not the same person she was three years ago.  That girl is dead.

Jasey doesn’t even realize she’s started crying until she feels Bruce’s hand on her cheek, his thumb sweeping gently under her eye.  She feels hollowed-out and empty and _weak_.  All she ever does is feel weak anymore.  Being Robin made her feel strong, made her feel invincible, but that one night made her realize just how fragile she really is.  She thought coming home would make her feel better, she thought she could fix things, but she can’t forget everything that’s happened and all the awful things that she’s done.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps.  “I’m so sorry, for-for everything.  I-“

Suddenly, she feels like if she doesn’t kiss him she’ll die.  She crawls in his lap, her hands on his face, and she’s so _desperate_ and he can tell because he says, “Hey, it’s okay.  Baby, it’s okay,” and then they’re kissing.  All the noise inside her brain, all the anger and fear and sadness, melts away.  She tugs on his shirt and he breaks away from her to pull it up and off.  It’s been so long since she’s touched him and her hands run over his chest and abdomen greedily, chasing old scars and new ones.  “I love you,” he breathes into her mouth as she unbuttons his pants.  “I love you so fucking much, little bird.”

Jasey’s heart swells until she thinks she’s going to die from it.  “I love you, too, B.  Always have, always will.”  He pushes her down on the bed, gets his hand under her dress and pushes her panties to the side, makes her come around two of his fingers.  While she’s still trying to catch her breath, he slides into her, filling her up.  “I love you,” she says again.  “I love you.”  He kisses her and kisses her and kisses her and she finally feels like she’s at home.

 


End file.
